Thursday, April 20, 2006

The document -- goes from here to there. This "poster" is from one of my travel photos and it looks a bit like "the document company" (Xerox) art. But it also comes to stand for how China and the US knock laws on copyright.

Meanwhile, back on the ranch, locally, we have a candidate for public office that is putting out good ideas that may be very similar statements from others in different times and places.

Wow, these claims, charges and foundation to the thinking is interesting.

The Platform.For-Pgh.org is a wiki that is geared to these types of postings and issues. Attribution is often given, but it is not an 'academic' mission. Rather, ours is a struggle of idea crafting and talk of solutions and problems.

Most voters are not looking for candidates who get "As" in originality.

In the last special election I was involved -- March 14, 2006 -- it was said to me from another participant, "The two candidates who had the least to say got the most votes."

If a candidate is real original -- like Bill Peduto is -- then we get laws such as the "bubble bill" that protects people going into and out of health clinics. But, the law also gets taken to court and, IMHO, will be found illegal.

Mayor Tom Murphy was a champion of being creative. Corporate welfare flew from the poor to the rich like never before with his thinking and skills of changing everyone's (almost everyone's) understanding. TIFs (tax breaks to the super rich) are something Pittsburgh developed and they are being copied in other parts of the county and country. But, that original style does not work in the long-run. It costs money from the public treasury. It gets a handful of cronies rich.

So, the blade cuts both ways as to being 'creative.' And, I'd say there is a lot of value to being only as good as Jefferson and Franklin when it comes to one's thinking in modern econmic and liberty discussions.

And, I have no problem with other candidates for public office taking other comments from others and re-using them in their talks, press releases, web sites and beyond.

Have you heard of the Creative Commons? Those levels of 'protection' are nice. But, are we going to see a license that says others can use these words only if they are running a race for a certain brand?

You can't copyright ideas! You can't slap a trademark on things that are in the public domain.

Well, you can. But, this shouldn't be the way things work.

I'm all in favor of more open-source approaches.

The messenger is less important than the message.

And finally, screw the academics and the ivory tower they rode in on. Who are they to say this or that won't work on a college campus? You know, there was a debate on a college campus and the college prof was so weak and ignorant -- and he's an expert -- that the people in the audience could not run a video camera of the discussions. Screw that.

You know what wouldn't work on a college campus -- a professor saying we're going to have some outside guests and we're not going to allow it to be put on tape.

If the plans from the candidate make sense -- talk sense. If the plans are full of holes -- point them out. If you don't have anything better to suggest -- the one who needs to return to college seems evident to me.

One final story. On the campaign trails we went to one event and were hit with a one page quiz from one well meaning community group. The questions were short -- but there were more than five. But the right answer wasn't true-nor-false. I didn't fill out the form there, as asked. I said I'd take it home. They wanted them there and then. I told the others, I'm not doing their test. It didn't get done.

Most of life, including politics and government, is an OPEN BOOK TEST.

Louis Murphy -- public plagiarism could be something to be proud of. Sadly, there seems to be lies and distances made to the claim of plagiarism at the outset -- rather than an embrace of what it means to be a well researched student of public discourse and open source ways.

(Glenmoore, PA) – After Lois Murphy thought she had finished cleaning up the last plagiarism mess she created when she stole a point-by-point ethics plan from a candidate in California (and taking complete and total credit for the work over 30 times before being caught), the unethical former lobbyist and two-year full-time candidate for Congress has been caught plagiarizing again - this time word for word - from Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY).

An April 18th media advisory released (yesterday) by Lois Murphy stole the exact language from a January 26, 2006 news release from the office of United States Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.

The Clinton release reads, "The law that created the Medicare prescription drug program exempted the lowest income nursing home residents from all prescription drug co-payments. However, it left out the equally vulnerable group of low-income beneficiaries who live in assisted living facilities."

The Murphy campaign release reads, "Medicare Part D exempts the lowest income nursing home residents from all prescription drug co-payments, yet doesn't exempt the equally vulnerable group of low-income beneficiaries who live in assisted living facilities."

"This isn't an anomaly. This is a sustained pattern of unethical and premeditated acts of plagiarism by Lois Murphy, thinking she would never get caught again," said Mark Campbell, Political Director for Congressman Jim Gerlach (PA-6)."Even with a new communications director, it is clear Lois Murphy just can't stop representing other people's work and words as her own. We thought being a former lobbyist and a close ally of far-left special interest 527 groups was enough of an ethical dilemma, but she continues to give the 6th district voters more proof that she is the poster child for what is wrong in Washington."

In addition, the Murphy advisory paraphrases on another Clinton release from February 8, 2006, which would prevent prescription drug plans from changing which drugs they cover at any point during a given year, while seniors are forced to maintain the same plan for one year.

"Lois Murphy recently told the New York Times that ethics is the number one issue in this campaign. Well, she's right, and she doesn't have any. This is another slap in the face to the media and residents of the 6th district," added Campbell. "How many times will Lois Murphy change her story this time, about how the exact same language was 'lifted' from Hillary Rodham Clinton proposals, and miraculously reappears as Lois Murphy's?"

After being caught last month for stealing six bullet points from Francine Busby's CLEAN House Act (and in turn renaming it 'her' CLEAN House Pledge), Lois Murphy changed her story five times about how the plagiarism occurred:

1. Murphy says she "prepared" the plan and that it's hers. (Letter to Gerlach, 2/23/06)

2. Murphy campaign says she reviewed other plans - but she "came up with the idea on her own." [Reading Eagle, 3/10/06]

3. Murphy says she would be "happy to share credit with Busby." [Reading Eagle, 3/10/06]

4. Murphy campaign says "at least one part of our plan is different from the Busby Plan." [The Evening Bulletin, 3/10/06]

5. Murphy campaign says Lois Murphy "did use material from Busby's pledge, but she also drew on other proposals." [The Philadelphia Inquirer, 3/13/06]

In addition, various college professors and a campaign ethics expert verified Murphy's ethics plan was "sloppy," would receive an "F for originality," and would find herself in "hot water on a college campus."

All Senator Clinton's news releases can be viewed publicly at the following government address: http://www.clinton.senate.gov/news/statements/index.cfm .

I don't always POST the entire article to my blog. Not at all. But, PoliticsPA went under for a few days. And, I got burned in the past say when InPgh went under. I was on that site to harvest some news -- of ME -- when they pulled the plug there. Never to see the light of the net again.

And, as I make my stuff on the web -- on CD and DVD -- as part of a full package for off-line surfing -- it is hard to point and build conversations when the materials are taken out of context.

Finally, I agree that L.Murphy was goofy in her "defense" of the content from elsewhere. That is part of the story too.

The fair use "limit" is NOT true -- from my perspective. We can disagree. And, it isn't "plagarism" at all. Different concept.

If I was not a candidate myself -- I'd tighten my focus on what I choose to clip and not -- greatly. But, I'm out there and often need to have a bigger scoop so as to dig deeper.

This is just one more thing to show that Lois Murphy is unethical. How do you send a plagiarizing lobbyist to Washington DC to clean up the system? I am supporting Mike Liebowitz, an honest guy who speaks knowledgably, hasn't taken special interests' money and is the real future of the democratic party.